Dear Mr. President: Chicano Batman

The first in our new series of open letters to Donald Trump.

In strange and confusing times, we turn to art to help us make sense of the turmoil that surrounds us. We’ve asked some of our favorite musicians, filmmakers, comedians, and others who speak truth to power to write open letters to President Trump to articulate whatever it is that they feel needs articulating—whether that’s a roar of anger or an appeal to common sense. Today, Chicano Batman put their pen to paper.

Chicano Batman / photo by Josue Rivas

Dear Mr. President,

We know what you are doing
You make it crystal clear with the way you are doing it
You sound like Andrew Jackson on steroids,
Ready to annihilate the Lakota Nation in the digital age
With a pipeline sticking blood-hungry mercenaries on grandmothers
You capitalize on bigotry and convert it into executive action to satisfy
A constituency that only vote against their own interests as they swallow the GMO corn that they eat
As they swallow the arsenic on tap in Gary, as the toxic minerals lodge themselves in the lungs of miners
And all kinds of workers in the heartland that do the bidding of international capital which you so crystal clearly represent
Like crystal meth the effects are ugly aren’t they?

And so are the effects of the Muslim ban
Your plan to build The Great Wall of Mexico
And the ban on Abortion

The response up there in Canada was grand, wasn’t it Mr. President?
You found a copycat that decided to take your executive order to the first degree jihad style
Yes, it’s the Trump Jihad that we are all currently confronted with
And I say we, because you’ve certainly pissed off a lot of people, Mr. President
It almost seems as if you’ve awoken a sleeping giant
That can no longer ignore whats popping up on their iPhones on Instagram
In fact, images of injured protesters in South Dakota
Images of refugee camps in Airports
The terrorist attack in Quebec
Are going viral
You’ve made your point crystal clear, Mr. President
And the effects are as harmful as crystal meth

So whether we stand behind the Constitution or human rights
We stand against you and what you represent, Mr. President
And we are ready to take you to rehab

Sincerely,
Chicano Batman

Chicano Batman’s third album, Freedom is Free, is due out March 3 via ATO.